MLB free agency is open for business and the Minnesota Twins might do some shopping.
Many people are hoping the Twins go into free agency like fans go into Target and go home with far more than they planned on buying. In baseball terms, fans really want the Twins to spend some money on legitimate big league players.
Aaron Gleeman of HardballTalk.com offered up some top-of-the-rotation starting pitchers the Twins could or should show interest in. Here’s the raw data on starters — with last year’s stats — that Gleeman is interested in.
- Matt Garza – RHP – 155 innings – 3.82 ERA
- Hiroki Kuroda – RHP – 201 innings – 3.31 ERA
- A.J. Burnett – RHP – 191 innings – 3.30 ERA
- Josh Johnson – RHP – 81 innings – 6.20 ERA
- Ervin Santana – RHP – 211 innings – 3.24 ERA
- Ubaldo Jimenez – RHP – 183 innings – 3.30 ERA
- Tim Hudson – RHP – 131 innings – 3.97 ERA
- Dan Haren – RHP – 170 innings – 4.67 ERA
As expected (because they tried to trade for him last November): told the #MNTwins have formally expressed interest in FA Ervin Santana.
— Darren Wolfson (@DWolfsonKSTP) November 5, 2013
I know @PRH1987 doesn't care. Maybe many more. But now have heard the #MNTwins have called on FA pitchers Johan Santana & Scott Kazmir.
— Darren Wolfson (@DWolfsonKSTP) November 6, 2013
Twins Daily has a fun piece on what a hypothetical Twins roster would look like if the Twins were to sign starters Phil Hughes, Josh Johnson and Johan Santana. Yes… the same Johan Santana that won a pair of Cy Young Awards (2004, 2006) for the Twins.
Santana, 34, spent the last five years in New York before the Mets bought out the final year of his contract last week.
Twins Daily takes it one step further with a list of every free agent starting pitcher on the market.
If this piece seems heavy on starting pitching, that’s because the Twins allowed the second most runs in all of baseball last season. That statistical nightmare has kept general manager Terry Ryan awake at night.
“We have to get better on the mound. We’re not giving ourselves a chance,” Ryan said in a Q&A at 1500ESPN.com. “We’re not getting deep enough into games. We’re overexposing the bullpen. We got through a few things last year. One was Kyle Gibson. He made it through the year with no setbacks. I’m sure he learned quite a bit. Now it’s time for him to step forward. We lost (Sam) Deduno. We had to keep an eye on (Mike) Pelfrey. (Scott) Diamond had an off year. (Kevin) Correia had the type of year I was hoping for, really. But our starting pitching has to be improved.”
